Robolink CoDrone Pro - Programmable and Educational Drone Kit

This is not a toy!A toy is something the kid can fly by himself with a joystick controller - you can actually set this up to do that... but that's not at all the point of this package. This is a flying robot. A robot designed to use on-board sensors to sense the robot and it's environment, then using instructions that you've programmed into it's computer "brain", the drone flies by itself (without you touching the joysticks) carrying out those instructions - instructions like takeoff, hover, fly forward and land.It is, however, one of the best packages I've seen for teaching a kid to program a computer - and have a lot of fun doing it! The quadcopter itself is ready to fly out of the box - no assembly required... just charge the battery with the included charger. But you will have to put the controller together before you can actually fly the drone - there are really good instructions online - screwing some pieces together and plugging in a few wires... no soldering. Simple. But here's the point - you're still not ready... you need to work through the online instructions and lessons to learn how to write computer code and download it into the controller to make it all work. This isn't hard and the online lessons go through it step by step with a number of examples and lesson challenges.However this is going to require an adult to sit with the kid (depending on the kid's age and previous experience) so that the adult can help to explain the lesson instructions and answer questions working this through together - I suspect that most kids aren't going to be able to do this without at least a little adult help along the way... So plan to have fun doing this together!I've built and programmed a lot of robots. And I've watched others struggle with this. The most common problem is that it's easy to build a robot (really it is) - but people get stuck because then they don't know how to program it. This drone package is about the programming - and if you learn the lessons, you'll have gained knowledge and a skill set that will include logical thinking, problem solving and computer programming.I highly recommend this as a great introduction to hobby robotics and computer programming!

I bought this programmable drone for my brother as a gift. He was really excited, as he had always wanted a robot, let alone a drone! I watched him play around with it: it kept him busy for a few hours, and seemed to really love building it and figuring out how to code for it. What I really liked: just the right challenge for anyone interested in 'coding' to fly it.There are no instruction manuals; everything is on the website so don't freak out if you can't find diagrams. The website has all the tutorials, and my brother found his way fairly quickly even without my help. If you know a tinkerer in your life, this is definitely an awesome gift.

I am giving this 4 stars because of the veratility of the drone itself. Building the remote was a easy, understanding the programming part took some practice, but there are a lot of tutorials to go with this product. The coding is in C++, luckily I adapted pretty easily to coding, but I have also taken college courses in C++. The tutorials are very good for people without a coding background (explained the subject better than my intro C++ instructor). You can also use the petrone app on your phone if you are impatient to understand the coding and want to start flying immediately. There are a lot of cool features that go with the app as well (follow me mode). The battery does not last long at all, which is probably the biggest downfall, definitely buy more batteries if you commit to this project, otherwise you will be writing commands you want to execute in flight mode but have to wait for another charge.The drone disassembles very easily, I think it is a pretty sturdy drone for the price, and there are features you can add down the road like a camera or even wheels. I wish there was more description to make the controller more comfortable to hold, or even if a case was designed to give it a finished look.Overall I would recommend this product if you are willing to commit to learning the code. I bought this to build a better understanding on how transmitters are programmed and feel like this little project helped with achieving my goal. This is good for any age person interested in the "guts" of programming transmitters. I live in Ohio and wish they offered classes out this way, if I was in CA I would definitely check the classes out.

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